


{{{...grey…}}}

by josephina_x



Series: The Triangle Guy [6]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: ...Or is he?, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Bill isn’t Bill, Depression, Gen, Identity Issues, Post-Series, Post-Weirdmageddon, See You Next Summer, Two Years Later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 10:24:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13188114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josephina_x/pseuds/josephina_x
Summary: The triangle was forgotten, but then found once again. This is not a happy occasion. He didn’t really want to ‘wake up’.





	{{{...grey…}}}

**Author's Note:**

> Fic: {{{...grey…}}}  
> Fandom: Gravity Falls  
> Pairing: n/a  
> Rating: PG-13  
> Spoilers: through the end of the series, and some of the books (Journal #3)  
> Summary: The triangle was forgotten, but then found once again. This is not a happy occasion. He didn’t really want to ‘wake up’.  
> Disclaimer: Not mine, not for profit.  
> AN: I feel like maybe this may need a trigger warning or two, but I’m not sure. Maybe let me know in the comments form if you think there should be something not already listed in the tags, and feel inclined to help out?
> 
> And yes, the verb tense change at the end of this fic was deliberately done. Things change, dear reader. Things change.

\---

There was a banging about in the ‘secret’ basement room of a type that he did not, could not associate with Sixer, because Sixer didn’t ever sound like that, he thought.

(He thought.)

He’d been grey fog for so long he’d almost forgotten how to think.

...Not that his thinking had ever been good for anything, what little thinking he’d ever done.

It was dark, and then it wasn’t.

There was movement.

“Perfect!” he heard, and he didn’t know what was going on.

Couldn’t really find it in him to care.

He wasn’t perfect, not even close (...what a laughable thought!...), so it obviously had nothing to do with him.

\---

The grey fog wasn’t exactly new.

When he’d been Stanley Pines (... _had_ he been Stanley Pines?...), he’d felt it from time to time. He’d lie in bed, in the middle of the wintertime, and think about how useless he was, what a screw-up he was, how he was never getting his brother back, never going to fix anything, why was he even going to try, it was useless, he was useless, and there was no point in him trying to do anything at all ever. He’d just screw it up, like always.

It didn’t matter what he did. He’d just screw it up, like always.

It didn’t matter what he did, _because_ he’d just screw it up, like always.

He’d shoved his brother through a portal. His brother was lost forever; he was never going to get him back. He was never going to see his brother again.

He deserved to die. He should just die.

...But trying to die would have taken energy he didn’t have. So he’d just lay there, in Sixer’s bed that wasn’t his, and stared at the ceiling instead.

And not moved.

Not gotten up.

Just lay there, like the stupid lump that he was, and tried to breathe through the hurt deep inside. Tried, and sometimes forgot to, breathe through the numbness that followed the hurt, that dimmed his vision and painted everything grey, until he couldn’t feel anything anymore, couldn’t move, couldn’t think, didn’t think, until there was nothing in his empty head but grey fog.

Sometimes, it had been almost too hard to even breathe.

Stanley Pines had had to get up eventually, though. He’d had things to do, and he’d been too stubborn (...or too scared of the helplessness that came with dehydration and starvation, deep-down where even the grey fog couldn’t quite manage to reach...) to just lie in his stolen bed with his brother’s stolen name until he’d wasted away completely.

But now, he didn’t exactly have that problem, now did he? He didn’t have to eat anymore. Or drink. Or get up and... do _anything_ , really.

There was nothing that could possibly force him to have to get up at some point. Not anymore.

So he didn’t get up. He didn’t get up again.

What was the point, when the world was dead-set on knocking you down and keeping you there?

Just let it happen. Let it be done. Stay down, for once. ...Stay down _forever_. Why not?

Why not? Why fight it?

Why should he always have to fight against it.

But that was the point. _He didn’t._ He _didn’t_ have to fight against it.

So he didn’t. He didn’t. He stopped trying.

He stopped caring.

He just… **stopped**.

\---

“Mabel, what--?”

“Haha, I knew raiding Grunkle Ford’s stuff would turn out okay! See!”

“You actually found an empty birdcage that--” There was a pause. “Mabel, _that’s not empty!!_ That’s--!”

“Huh?” Another pause. “Oh. _\--Oh!_ ”

“Put him _back_ before Great Uncle Ford finds out that you--!”

“--Why’s he grey? Did Grunkle Ford forget to dust him?”

“What...?”

There was a pause. He felt the cage tilted a bit in a few different directions.

“That… doesn’t look like dust, Mabel…”

“Huh.”

“--Mabel, don’t _poke_ him!!” A rustle of fabric and an annoyed huff.

There was a pause.

“Bill?”

It took him a minute to remember that that was his name. By the time he did…

...well, he still didn’t feel up to moving. Or chatting. Or doing much of anything.

Easier just to not even bother.

Besides, if he tried, they’d just get mad at him and yell at him anyway.

(...Wouldn’t they?)

“Y-you don’t think he’s _dead_ , do you?”

“Don’t be silly, Dip-Dop! We can’t do the circle, remember? And Grunkle Ford’s big molecular de-something-or-other is all outta juice.”

“...That does not make me feel better, Mabel.”

There was a longer pause. He felt the cage set down.

“...Do you think Grunkle Ford’s been forgetting to feed him?” A slight hesitation. “Or feeding him the wrong stuff?”

There was a pause. But when Dipper spoke next, the kid sounded exasperated. “Why would you even…”

“Well, he’s grey!” he heard Mabel exclaim. “Flamingos are grey if they don’t eat enough pink shrimp, right? And they need shrimp!” There was a slight pause. “...Do you think I should give him a banana?”

“No, Mabel…”

“Lemons?”

“Mabel…”

“Popcorn? --Ooh, _corn chips!_ ”

He heard a groan and a thump.

“Well, I’m pretty sure he needs to eat _something_. Everybody’s gotta eat!”

Muffled and from floor level to his right, he heard: “He’s a dream demon, Mabel. I’m pretty sure he’s supposed to eat dreams.”

There was a long pause.

Then a tentative, “...Do you think Grunkle Ford’s been starving him?”

There was a long sigh and an odd shuffling noise.

“You know, it might not be Great-Uncle Ford’s fault. He could just not be eating,” he heard the kid reassure his sister.

“--But _why?_ ”

“I don’t know, Mabel.” Another thump, and a half-muffled, “Why don’t you ask him.”

“Bill? Are you not eating?”

“I _meant_ Great-Uncle-- y’know what, never mind.”

“Bill?” There was a pause. “Ummmm… Are you asleep?”

“He’s a dream demon, Mabel. He doesn’t sleep.”

...No, he just became grey fog and stopped thinking after a while. And he was pretty sure that those two things weren’t exactly the same.

Not if he was supposed to eat dreams. Otherwise, he’d have his own dreams to eat.

...Unless he _was_ eating his own dreams?

He wasn’t sure why, but he got the feeling that his dreams would be grey, if he had them.

He felt the cage tilted, and tilted, and…

...tilted some more…

...and then he fell against the back curve of the cage, felt his arms and legs dangle _down past_ his back-face.

His front-face was… ‘upright’.

The movement jarred him enough that the grey fog lifted, at least a little.

“Bill?”

...Ugh. They weren’t going to stop until he did _something_ , were they?

He debated not doing anything at all. But he knew how persistent Mabel was and could be.

So he slowly opened his eye partway.

He was staring up at Mabel.

Mabel looked down at him and blinked.

Then she gave him the most brilliant smile.

“ _HI!_ ” she said.

He felt his eye widen and he shivered slightly, feeling both a little warm, and a little cold at the same time.

He saw Dipper move into his field of view. “Oh, geez,” he heard and saw the kid say, clutching at his hat. “Mabel--” the kid hissed over at her. “He’s been listening to us this _entire time!_ ”

She turned her head to look over at him. “So?”

“ _So,_ ” he saw the kid drop his hands, “He’s been listening to you talk about lemons and the circle and stuff!”

“Don’t be such a worry-wart, Dip-Dop,” Mabel told her brother, waving a sweater-covered arm at her twin. “It’s not like we’re gonna let him out of there. Boop!” she said brightly, and ‘boop’ed Dipper on the nose.

And it was at that point that he lost track of everything that was happening around him, because…

… _of course_ they wouldn’t let him out of here. Of course they wanted him stuck in a cage.

Because he was Bill Cipher, wasn’t he?

And wasn’t that funny? He was a triangle demon with the power of a demi-god. And yet. _And yet..._ He was stuck in a cage that he couldn’t get out of on his own, just like he’d been stuck in that… Nightmare Realm, right? That place. He hadn’t been able to get out of there on his own, either, right? He’d needed Sixer, to make the portal, to make the rift… He was and had been reliant on other people to get him out of it, them, both, and nobody was going to do that for him on purpose, now, were they? Because why would they? Why would they? _WHY WOULD THEY?!?_

Why would anyone ever want to help _**him?**_

He was Bill Cipher, Bill Cipher, Bill Cipher.

And he wanted to cry, but in that moment he finally realized that he _couldn’t_. He couldn’t even _cry_ properly.

So he closed his eye and started laughing instead.

And he didn’t really much care whether Sixer came or not, heard him or not; he just didn’t.

\---

Later, he doesn’t remember anything, really, of the in-between bits, except laughing until he wasn’t. Laughing until he stopped.

But he knows that at some point he went from being flat on his back, lying against the bars of his cage in a room with the twins (...the attic room?...), to sitting sprawled back against the bars of his cage, upright and in the dark… somewhere.

He’s probably back in the ‘secret’ basement room, back on that high shelf with a towel tossed over his cage, again. To be forgotten again. Out of the way, where nobody has to see him or hear him again if they don't want to.

And they don’t want to. Of course they don’t; why would they?

He's an embarrassment; a joke. He couldn’t even die like they wanted him to.

And if he can’t give them what they want, then what’s the point of even talking to them, to try and come to any compromise, to attempt to make with them any sort of deal? He has no leverage with any of them.

He can’t get what he wants, because he can’t give them anything they want.

He can’t give them what they want. --The _only_ thing they want.

The only thing they’ve ever really wanted out of him was for him to...

He slumps down the side of the cage and lets the grey fog take him.

\---


End file.
